Chicago, I'm told, has a morality problem. That's what White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the other day when asked if violence in our city is related to easy access to guns. "I think that the problem there is pretty clear that it's a crime problem," she said. "I think crime is probably driven more by morality than anything else." That's an interesting statement, given the reason the question was posed: The administration had just announced that 20 federal gun agents were being dispatched to Chicago to help with a task force focused on the flow of illegal guns into the city. [continues 1083 words]
Police Torture Report The truth about acts of torture in the Chicago Police Department, laid out over 290 pages, was there for all to see--those who wanted the facts, and perhaps more important, those who didn't. It took special prosecutor Edward Egan and Robert Boyle, the chief deputy special prosecutor, four years and more than $6 million in taxpayer money to investigate the atrocities that went down behind the doors of police interrogation rooms on the South Side in the 1970s and '80s. [continues 790 words]
Her Life's Work Was Devoted To Ex-Convicts BUFFALO, N.Y. . Sister Karen Klimczak moved quick as the wind off Lake Erie. In a day she might race from counseling ex-offenders at the halfway house she ran to praying at a murder victim's vigil, then head to the youth center she founded before donning a clown suit and bouncing joyously through a senior center. She was 62 years old, 5 feet, 2 inches tall and just over 100 pounds, tireless and in near-constant motion. In western New York, they called her Mother Teresa in fast forward. Without a trace of hyperbole, they called her a gift from God. [continues 830 words]
BUFFALO -- Sister Karen Klimczak moved quick as the wind off Lake Erie, a peace-loving nun who crisscrossed the city with such speed that friends wondered, only half jokingly, if she hadn't borrowed some Catholic saint's miraculous ability to bilocate. In a day she might race from counseling ex-offenders at the halfway house she ran to praying at a murder victim's vigil, then head to the youth center she founded before donning a clown suit and bouncing joyously through a senior center. [continues 1710 words]
Late in the morning, money is briskly changing hands in the Dearborn Homes, a dreary complex of faded brick buildings scattered along three blocks of South State Street. In a lobby streaked with graffiti and rank with trash and urine, an orderly line of junkies bends around an L-shaped corridor, awaiting clearance to a dark stairwell and the drug supermarkets on the second and third floors. Wearied by years of crackling gunfire and the relentless toll of homicide, residents here know this business at their doorstep is deadly--police and even drug dealers say it's responsible for Chicago having the highest number of murders in the nation last year. [continues 3936 words]
Intercom Orders Taken, Cops Say As part of a drive-through drug operation at a Mundelein Burger King, orders for cocaine were taken over the intercom and the drug was handed out in the restaurant's brown paper bags, police said Monday. The system ran smoothly for at least nine months but ended Friday when the restaurant's night manager and three other people--all from Mundelein--were arrested and charged with criminal drug conspiracy and delivery of cocaine. "They'd put the narcotics into a Burger King bag and place it in a refrigerator that was right next to the drive-through window," said Mundelein Police Sgt. Nick Poulos. "Considering the fact that we were able to purchase large amounts, we believe that there was quite a business. The volume of patrons there was quite high." [continues 518 words]
Don't Delay Mcveigh's Execution, Judge Urged Top Court Delays Ruling In Nichols Case TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- At the same prison where Timothy McVeigh awaits his fate is a lesser-known figure who faces execution June 19 in a case that could have a far greater effect on the future of the federal death penalty. Juan Raul Garza, 44, was convicted of running a marijuana smuggling operation, killing a man, and ordering the slayings of two others he thought were informants. [continues 781 words]
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - At the same prison where Timothy McVeigh awaits his fate is a lesser-known figure who faces execution June 19 in a case that could have a far greater effect on the future of the federal death penalty. Juan Raul Garza, 44, was convicted of running a marijuana smuggling operation, killing a man and ordering the slayings of two others he thought were informants. The Texas drug kingpin narrowly escaped the death chamber in December amid concerns that the federal death penalty is racially or geographically biased. President Clinton ordered the Justice Department to review the government's use of capital punishment. [continues 824 words]
INDIANAPOLIS - Dean Wildauer knows it's out there. Dangling a cigarette out the window of his Indiana State Police cruiser, the trooper squints at the traffic roaring eastbound on Interstate 70 through a light rain. Oh yeah, he says. It's out there. It could be stashed in duffle bags in the back of that rented Lexus. Or maybe tucked inside the side panels of that minivan. It could be taped inside the tires of a new car on that car carrier or hidden in a washing machine in that moving van. [continues 1368 words]
It was supposed to be just another busy Labor Day weekend in North Florida. But in less than 24 hours, Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Blanco would find himself strapped into the cockpit of an Air Force cargo jet delivering illegal drugs to New York City. It was 1993, and Blanco was part of a four-man drug interdiction team patrolling Interstate 95 near Jacksonville. About 1:30 Saturday afternoon, one of the officers pulled a U-Haul truck over for a traffic violation. Blanco and his partner were nearby and rolled up just as the U-Haul came to a stop. [continues 234 words]
State and federal law enforcement officials say that cutting off the supply of illegal drugs may be impossible. So, they are trying harder to curb demand. Over the past five years, the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington has increased federal money for prevention by 33 percent and boosted the money for drug treatment by 38 percent. "That's really the heart and soul of what we're doing, combined with continuing stiff law enforcement," says Barry McCaffrey, director of the ONDCP. "We want to keep the social disapproval of drug abuse high." [continues 329 words]
